So I don't know where else to turn and I'm being told I need to confess. I can't tell you where I live, because word might get back to my family, or maybe where I used to work, and that's really not something I want to think about.

It seems like you guys like a good story, so I guess this is as good a place as any to get a few things off my chest. Someone needs to hear what I have to say, and if I want to stay out of jail, I can't tell the shrink. That fucker doesn't help anyway. He just asks me stupid-ass questions about my ex-wife and prescribes me bullshit like Zoloft. That stuff doesn't help. Yeah, it was nice at first. When I started taking it, I was stoned out of my mind for a good two weeks. But after I got used to it, life was right back to where it was…freakouts, restlessness, headaches, feeling like I was too big for my own skin. The zaps were the worst, though… the "Zoloft zaps". Serotonin withdrawals. I quit taking them after I realized they weren't doing any good. You'd just be sitting there and all of a sudden you'd get this bright flash in the back of your brain, except it wasn't a flash, and it felt like your eyeballs did a barrel roll. Like the earth hiccuped....

A 21-year-old Czech girl who spent four hours smoking super-strength skunk cannabis had to be rescued by policemen from atop an electric pylon. How would this happen you ask? Well, apparently she was so high that she was hallucinating that the power lines were a bridge. Police spokesman Jan Macalikova said: “She was convinced, though, that the pylon was a bridge across the Morava river.” Drugs counselors and police eventually persuaded her to come down after two hours on the pylon...

Now in honor of the change here is the very first installment of PRICEBREAKS AND HEARTACHES;

Price Breaks and Heartaches

a journal of retail and failed romance

Prologue

I No Longer Fear Hell for I Have Been To the Senior Prom

part one

(The following story is true- except for the parts I totally made up. The names have been changed to protect the people I loved and to protect me from the people I hated)

The Junior Prom left a bad taste in my mouth, and not just because my date never cleaned her damn braces. I vowed there was no way I was going to waste my time and money again, there was no way I was going to the Senior Prom.

Besides as far as I my teenage mind was concerned there was only one girl for me but I was afraid to ask her for more. I was too afraid of being rejected.

So imagine my surprise when one day, a mere three weeks before the date of the Prom I ended up with a Prom date. It was a whirlwind romance; boy meets girl at the library, boy takes girl to the mall for a burger after school, boy and girl make out behind the dumpster at the Empire Burger

And that was why I asked Agnes Malone to be my date for the Prom.

Agnes and I were pretty much inseparable for the three weeks leading up to the prom but I started to notice that she was slowly changing from the from a sweet girl that enjoyed my company to a short tempered she-vixen that did not suffer fools gladly.

Since I am something of a fool you can see the problems this raised.

I wasn’t surprised really though because at the age of 18 I was firmly convinced there were two things I could not live without but would never be able to understand-cars and women. Both tended to get me in a lot of trouble, both always seemed to cost me a lot of money, and both had a habit of falling apart on me in the most unexpected of ways.

Still though, I made it to the prom and damn if I didn't look good in a tux, a chunky James Bond if ever there was one. My date looked pretty good too with her floor length skirt and plunging neckline. My younger brother had the car that weekend so we decided to share a limo with my friend Corey and his date Velma.

The banquet hall of the local Marriott was decked out in the finest decorations that could be bought on a limited budget. As I looked around I saw a few of the students that treated me like a person, there was annoying Joanna, wealthy Adrian, the unique Kevin K. Hanson and then there was Lilly- the one that got away and kept getting away. I introduced Agnes to all of them and for a time we mingled.

Adrian was already pissed off because he'd gotten an expensive white tuxedo to wear to the prom and had tripped walking up the front steps to his date's house and now had ass to elbow grass-stains. Kevin K. Hanson was having a great time at the Prom, he and his date were boogieing and cutting up. I never realized his sister was such a good dancer.

And of course that damned Joanna had to come over and talk to us; her and her idiot loser boyfriend of the week. I talked to her as briefly as I could and tried to keep from rolling my eyes every time she spoke. Stupid annoying Joanna.

Pretty soon it was time for us to all go to our tables and enjoy our overpriced meals. I had gotten my tickets for the Prom very late in the game so we pretty much had no choice of where we were going to sit. I didn't give much thought to it however, what was the worst that could happen?

And that was how I found myself seated at a table near the back with just about every guy that had ever beaten me up in gym class...

The actress Caroline John - who played companion Liz Shaw - has died, it was announced today. The news came via a tweet from the BBC on the Doctor Who Twitter feed. The actress passed away on 5th June, but the news was undisclosed by the family until after the funeral took place yesterday in south-west London. The cause of death is unknown as yet...

In This Twilight

The following links are Prickle Approved.

Support me via recurring payments with PATREON

Or make a one time donation via GOFUNDME

About Me

Al Bruno III is a writer of comedy and horror with over twenty years experience crafting stories that are as unforgettable as they are strange. Or then again, maybe he's just another unpublished author with a blog.